Aviation Survival Technician School

Six months of training to become the person who jumps out of a helicopter into 30-foot seas to save someone who's drowning. AST School at Elizabeth City, NC is the Coast Guard's rescue swimmer pipeline — part EMT, part combat swimmer, part therapist for people having the worst day of their lives. The attrition rate is brutal because the ocean doesn't care about your motivation speech. Every AST deployment story sounds like a movie script. "The Guardian" was based on these people.